site.btaSocialists Call for Opening Up Classified Report on Excise Information System

Sofia, January 16 (BTA) - The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) calls for opening up a classified report by the State Agency for National Security (SANS) on the work of the centralized Excise Information System. Making public the initiative at a news briefing Tuesday, BSP deputy floor leader Zhelyu Boychev said if people can read this report, nobody will be asking whether or not a no-confidence motion is against the government is justified.

Boychev's party are moving for no-confidence in the government Wednesday over what they see as a failure in counter-corruption efforts.

Boychev said that BSP have applied for access to the report and he was personally able to see it in the classified department of Parliament's chancery on Monday. He said the report catalogues the weaknesses of the excise information system. "All this is about revenue which the Bulgarian State has failed to collect," he commented.

He has one question to the competent authorities: whether the weaknesses of the excise information system have to do with the recent killing of a ranking tax officer who was in charge of fiscal control over excise goods and high-risk goods.

The tax officer was murdered late last year and the case is yet unresolved.

"Millions of leva were spent for the introduction of this system which has been operational since 2012. The big idea was to link up all persons to which the Excise and Tax Warehouses Act is applicable, so that information can be exchanged at the entry and exit of the fuel market," Boychev recalled.

He said that the decree from a prosecutorial check and the SANS report on the Excise Information System of August 2016 have been sent to the Prime Minister and the Socialists want to know what measures have been taken since then to address weaknesses in the system and protest taxpayers' interests.